


Badass

by Side_effect_of_the_meds



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 03:38:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20333431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Side_effect_of_the_meds/pseuds/Side_effect_of_the_meds
Summary: An anon on my Tumblr asked: Neil finally gives up his hair as fried and a lost cause and shaves it off without warning. What are the foxes/Andrew's reactions? Here is my response. It's copy-pasted from Tumblr which is why it isn't that great but I thought I'd put it up on here anyway.





	Badass

Allison is PISSED. She keeps insisting that she could have saved it. The rest of the upperclassman were sad to see it go but they don’t give him too much shit about it. Nicky is in mourning. He spends at least, the next two months whining. During each of their breaks, he comes up to tell Neil that there was nothing sexier than the way his hair fell when he pulled it out of a bandana at the end of a game. He insists that it was the only reason he dragged himself to practice. Neil just ignores him. 

Aaron has a mental breakdown. He thinks that Neil looks really badass and gets scared because now he thinks he’s gay and has a thing for Neil. It takes him a week and a half to chill out. It’s a good week for Katelyn tho. In an attempt to satiate his fears, Aaron’s been her eating out every day and she’s living for it. Katelyn and Kevin end up liking Neil’s hair too. They likes the way it tickles their palms when they run their hands over it. Kevin used to ruffle Neil’s hair all the time even before he cut it because Neil is his baby brother and he loves him with his whole heart. Now he does it as a stress relief thing. Something about the way they feel now makes him feel better.<strike> Don’t ask me to explain this one. I do this to my friend all the time. It makes me feel better and I like projecting onto Kev and Neil. </strike>Once Aaron calms down, he shows up at Neil’s dorm before practice one day. Neil frowns but lets him in. He goes into the bathroom and digs the razor Neil used out of the cabinet. Returning with it in hand, Neil finally understands. They lay a towel on the floor and drag in a stool. Aaron hesitates before taking his shirt off and Neil just glares at him. After losing the staredown, he shucks it off and Neil replaces it with a towel. 

“What exactly do you want?” Neil asks as he plugs in the razor.

“An undercut,” Aaron mumbles. Neil looks at him with wide eyes and an amused grin. Aaron just scowls. When he flips the razor on, Aaron curls into himself. 

“Hey,” Neil says, turning the razor off. He grabs Aaron by his chin and forces him to look him in the eye. “You’ve got to trust me.”

“Trust a liar?” Aaron snapped. 

“Look, man, you’re the one that came here. You want me to be honest? I really don’t care about you. You mean absolutely nothing to me. Last year, I needed you so that we had enough kids to make the line-up. This year, however, we’ve got two new backliners. Jack and Sheena might get on every one of my nerves but here’s the bottom line: I. Don’t. Need. You. To me, you are expendable. 

“To Andrew though? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he loves you so goddamn much. You think he chose me over you? Wrong. Your brother knew that if he kept holding on to you, you’d only grow to hate him. He saw that letting you be happy would be a show of good faith. He trusted that you’d return the gesture by showing him that he didn’t have to keep you on a leash. And you did. Why? Because I know you love him as much as he loves you.

“Contrary to what you keep deluding yourself into believing, I love Andrew. Andrew lets Katelyn live because he knows you’d never forgive him if he hurt her. I let you live because Andrew would never forgive me if I hurt you. You don’t have to trust that I’m a good person because, let’s face it, we both know that I’m not. No, you just have to trust that I love Andrew more than I hate you.” Neil lets go of Aaron’s chin and leans back against the counter. “So? What’ll it be?” 

Aaron can feel his blood boiling. A small part of him knows Neil is right. He came in here. He asked for this. Screwing his eyes shut, he takes in a deep breath. “Do it,” he says, finally. He hears the razor cut on. Every pass it makes scares the living daylights out of him. He’s too scared to open his eyes. He’s just going to have to trust Neil. Beneath the towel, he clenches his hands into fists. He focuses on the way his nails bite into his palms. _You asked for this,_ he tells himself. When the razor cuts off, he feels the towel slide away. A hairdryer is turned on and he can feel it blowing on the back of his neck. 

“Done,” Neil says. Aaron pries his eyes open to see himself in the mirror. His jaw drops and he runs his hands over the buzzed sides.

“Damn, I’m one fine son of a bitch,” he whispers. He hears Neil snort behind him. 

“You’re the ugliest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen,” Neil replies. 

“What about Andrew?” 

“He’s the most beautiful man in the world.” Neil’s response is immediate. Aaron turns to look at Neil, dumbfounded. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m just stating the facts. Andrew absorbed your aesthetic appeal in the womb,” Neil snaps. He tells Aaron to shower and dumps some of Andrew’s clothes on the counter for him. The two of them have to walk to practice because Andrew left without them. They arrive just as everyone is about to hit the court. 

Everyone is shrieking at the sight of Aaron. He looks amazing, even if Neil doesn’t think so. They all know Neil had to have been the one to do it but he refuses to say anything about it. He hits the locker room to get changed, leaving the others to fawn over Aaron. 

Neil slams his locker door shut only to find himself face to face with Andrew. His face is as unreadable as always. Neil’s abrupt haircut was a week and a half old at this point but Andrew still hadn’t said a single word to him since his original comment. Every nerve in Neil’s body screamed for him to reach out and touch Andrew but he knew better. The status of their relationship was up in the air and Neil was too scared to push the subject. 

When Neil had first walked into the Foxhole Court with his hair buzzed, Andrew had been the first to react. He had also reacted in what had been simultaneously the worst and best possible way. 

“I want a divorce,” he had said. All of the foxes had been stunned. Even Wymack looked taken aback. They’d all burst into laughter moments later but Neil wasn’t sure that Andrew hadn’t meant it. He still drove him around. They still shared a room and smoked cigarettes but Andrew hasn’t touched Neil since his haircut. Not a hand resting on the back of Neil’s now exposed neck. Not a forehead pressed to the back of Neil’s skull. Nothing. Neil was terrified. 

“Drew,” was what Neil said. Please was what it sounded like. Andrew hated the word please so Neil had found a way around it. He felt dirty for playing that card but he was getting desperate. 

“460%,” Andrew replied as he ran a hand over Neil’s buzzed hair. Neil felt his knees give out from under him. Strong arms wrapped around him and hoisted him up. His legs wrapped instinctively around Andrew’s waist and he pressed his forehead to Andrew’s, feeling himself relax for the first time in over a week. 

“It was fried,” Neil whispered. He hears Andrew hum in response. “Is it really that bad?” 

“No,” Andrew replied. “It’s actually really badass.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it <3  
Consider following me on Tumblr (side-effect-of-the-meds) for more of my little blurbs and other tom-foolery.


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